Karen Spring is a journalist and researcher based in Honduras. She was present during the 2009 coup and is currently working out of the main human rights office in Honduras (COFEDAH). An expert observer of Honduran politics, she gives her assessment of what is happening in the lead up to the Honduras'elections, behind the facade presented to the rest of the world.

Mariposa comments on the current debate in El Salvador and other countries in the region of Central America about the issue of ím punity' - or amnesty for those known to be guilty of war crimes and gross human rights violations that took place during the 12 year civil war in El Salvador.

Rudolfo Pacheco, a Mexican Philosophy teacher explains the whys and wherefores of the Mexican teachers' protests. The teachers have occupied the Zocalo for over 5 months in protest against 'Educational Reform' legislation, claiming that it is more about labor reform than educational reform, because it requires the teachers to undergo periodic evaluation to continue working in their profession.

In the second week of September the legislation was passed, and the teachers shut down the centre of Mexico City with confrontations with the police. On Friday they were evicted from the Zocalo and they have relocated to other public locations in the city, and are continuing with their protest marches.

Second part of an interview with Toni Solo, based in Nicaragua. In the context of the legal and international rights controversies generated by Snowden, Assange, the trials of Guatemalan ex-President Rios Montt for war crimes, and the Canadian mining company Hudbay for Human rights violations, the meeting of the Latin American ALBA countries in Ecuador this week, to discuss human rights issues takes on significant geopolitical weight.

First part of an interview with Toni Solo, based in Nicaragua. In the context of the legal and international rights controversies generated by Snowden, Assange, the trials of Guatemalan ex-President Rios Montt for war crimes, and the Canadian mining company Hudbay for Human rights violations, the meeting of the Latin American ALBA countries in Ecuador this week, to discuss human rights issues takes on significant geopolitical weight.

Toni Dolo reports from Nicaragua. Why whistleblower Snowden would want to go there , how Venezuela is sending US State Secretary John Kerry bonkers, and why Latin American countries (and some in the Caribbean) are standing up for their rights. Musical breaks from David Rovic's Prism album.

Toni Solo from Nicaragua talks about some of the environmental and geopolitical issues at stake in the announcement by the Nicaraguan government of an agreement with a Hong Kong based Chinese company to go ahead with feasability studies for a massive canal project connecting the Pacific Ocean with the Caribbean coast through largely uninhabited jungle areas of Nicaragua.

Toni Solo from Nicaragua talks about some of the environmental and geopolitical issues at stake in the announcement by the Nicaraguan government of an agreement with a Hong Kong based Chinese company to go ahead with feasability studies for a massive canal project connecting the Pacific Ocean with the Caribbean coast through largely uninhabited jungle areas of Nicaragua.

Grahame Russel is a Canadian lawyer who works with Rights Action (http://rightsaction.org). He was in Guatemala as an observer for the trial of Rios Efrain Montt who is accused of being responsible for the genocide of over 100 thousand Mayan indigenous people during his term as President in the early 1980s. Grahame makes the point that this is a ground breaking trial as it implicates the current President of Guatemala who was a major in the Guatemalan Armed Forces at the time the human rights abuses and the genocide was peaking. Alan Nairn, a journalist who filmed current President Otto Perez Molina gloating over the bodies of villagers suspected of being supporters of the guerilla forces was blocked from presenting evidence at the trial. (http://www.democracynow.org/2013/4/19/exclusive_allan_nairn_exposes_role_of)

Pavel Nunez Duarte, Honduras' revolutionary musican and songwriter, of the top selling band 'Cafe Guancasco' talks to community radio about how politics informs their music. A teacher of mathematics, a student organiser, and now active in the Resistance Front of Honduras against the coup, he finds music is 'another language', his guitar 'a megaphone' to communicate the social realities of Honduras. He can't say how he 'came to be involved in politics' because it has always been part of his life. It is more a question of why he can't leave it ! A revealing interview in which even the explanation of 'Guancasco' has a social import. A 'Guancasco, he says, is a gathering , or get together of people in an indigenous community. You don't get that, in the cities but, he explains, in urban communities around the world you have 'Cafes' . Hence the name - a blend of the modern and the traditional, the regional and the global.